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In 2021-22, the year that started with the deadly second wave of Covid-19, street vendors who took loans of Rs 5,000-10,000 under a Central scheme, were hit the hardest, with almost half of those who borrowed defaulting on their repayment.
But overall, between July 2020 and February 2023, just 17.51 per cent of the total number of loans turned bad or non-performing.
Under Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM-SVANidhi), the number of loans with the smallest ticket size of Rs 5,000-10,000 that turned non-performing or bad shot up from 3.98 per cent of the total number of loans disbursed in 2020-21 to 48.18 per cent of the total number of loans disbursed in 2021-22, government data shows. In 2022-23 (till February 10, 2023), 19.09 per cent of the total number of loans disbursed turned bad.
The data from the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs obtained by The Indian Express under the Right to Information Act shows that over three years (July 2020 till February 10, 2023), as many as 33.69 lakh loans, between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 each with a one-year maturity period, and adding up to Rs 3,345 crore, were disbursed. Of these, 15.05 lakh loans have been fully repaid (see chart for year-wise data) as on February 10 this year.
Express Network
Bengal over-reported midday meals worth more than Rs 100 crore: Centre’s report (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Welfare Schemes)
A Centre-state “joint review” of the implementation of the PM Poshan scheme in West Bengal has flagged “great concern” over 16 crore midday meals worth “more than Rs 100 crore” being “over-reported” by the local administration between April and September last year.
In its report, the Joint Review Mission (JRM), set up by the Ministry of Education in January this year, has also questioned the diversion of funds meant for the scheme to pay compensation to fire victims, misallocation of food grains, cooking of rice, dal and vegetables up to 70 per cent less than “prescribed quantities”, and usage of expired packets of condiments.
It was learnt that these are among the “serious discrepancies” and “major areas of concern” communicated by the Union Ministry of Education to the state government on March 24 along with the observation that the “wrong reporting about the number of meals served and its financial aspect was a matter of great concern.
On March 30, West Bengal responded to the Centre saying it directed the local project director of the scheme to examine the findings, which were based on a review carried out by the mission during its visit to the state between January 29 and February 7.
Ideas Page
The peace that could have been (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
As Pakistan’s multi-faceted crisis deepens by the day, India seems utterly detached. There has been little visible engagement between the governments of India and Pakistan for some years now.
The only exception was the ceasefire agreement of February 2021. Delhi insists on a terror-free environment to resume the dialogue. It is not that Pakistan is eager to resume talks.
Imran Khan, who was ousted from power a year ago and is riding high with strong popular support and the judiciary’s tilt towards him, ruled out talks with India the other day.
He wants Delhi to reverse the constitutional changes in Kashmir that were introduced in August 2019 before Pakistan comes to the table.
What about the ruling coalition in Islamabad? The major elements of the current government including Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League and Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party have at various times in the last three decades made a sincere effort at negotiating peace with India. But they were overruled by the then-Army leadership.
Today, they are fighting for their political survival against Imran Khan; engaging India is not at the top of their minds. The new Army chief, General Asim Munir, has said little about India. He has far too many domestic problems on his plate.
Explained
Why TN’s online gambling bill could clash with Centre’s rules (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
From privatisation efforts to disagreements over a centralised market for electricity, there have been many instances of ever-growing tussles between the Centre and various state governments in the last few years.
It perhaps a new frontier was added to that – the Tamil Nadu government received its Governor’s approval for a Bill banning online gambling, just one business day after the Centre notified fresh rules for online gaming.
The state’s assembly had passed the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Ordinance, 2022 last October.
However, in early March, the Governor RN Ravi returned the ordinance for reconsideration. A few weeks later, the assembly readopted the Bill and sent it to Raj Bhavan once again.
State laws on online gaming are a pain-point that many in the industry are foreseeing. They have also raised these concerns with the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), which is now the nodal agency for the sector. They are also likely to challenge Tamil Nadu’s measure in court once it is notified by the state government.
The Bill prohibits online gambling and online games of chance played for money or other stakes. While it specifically names Rummy and Poker as games of chance, it can go much wider in scope – it defines online games of chance as those where both an element of chance and skill are involved, and the element of chance dominates over the element of skill; games are presented as games of chance; the element of chance can only be eliminated by superlative skill; or games involve cards, dice, or wheel which work on random event generators.
The lens on inflation targeting (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Something remarkable happened last week. Quite unexpectedly, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the institution charged with the job to contain inflation, decided to stop raising interest rates.
This was quite odd because since May last year, the RBI had been exchanging jabs with high inflation, trying to bring it down close to RBI’s target level of 4% by repeatedly raising interest rates. It was almost as if the RBI suddenly decided to stop boxing and instead stand in one corner of the ring.
Before we proceed, it is important to understand what RBI does to contain inflation and how it works on paper.
The RBI is one of those central banks that are charged with targeting a certain level of inflation, come what may. It primarily does this by raising interest rates in the economy.
Higher interest rates drag down economic growth because loans of kinds become costlier. In essence, and this is the key point, the RBI hits overall demand to bridge the gap between what is demanded and what is supplied, thus bringing down prices.
In other words, a central bank’s single-minded focus on targeting an inflation rate might imply overall economic growth contracting (read recession).
Economy
IMF cuts India GDP for FY24 to 5.9% (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) raised its growth forecast, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cut its GDP growth forecast for India for the financial year 2023-24 by 20 basis points to 5.9 per cent.
The fresh revision in the growth forecast by the Washington-based multilateral body in its latest bi-annual World Economic Outlook is broadly in line with what other multilateral agencies and economists have projected and is sharply lower than the RBI projection of 6.5 percent.
The RBI had, on April 6, hiked its growth forecast for the current year by 10 basis points in its first monetary policy review of FY24.
The latest IMF projection makes it among the lowest growth forecasts for India in comparison with other multilateral development banks, with the World Bank projecting a 6.3 per cent growth rate and the manila-based Asian Development Bank forecasting 6.4 per cent GDP growth for FY24. Nomura has projected a growth rate of 5.3 per cent for the fiscal.
The IMF has projected India’s retail inflation to ease from 6.7 per cent in FY23 to 4.9 per cent in FY24 and current account deficit to come down to 2.2 per cent of GDP from 2.6 per cent in FY23.
Chief economist of IMF Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said while the global economy’s gradual recovery is on track, the recent banking instability has highlighted the fragilities in the rebound story.